Friday, July 4, 2014

We've experienced a sudden burst in sales of this series, and in gratitude to our fans we've got a couple of special treats.

For starters, all three currently released books are on sale at Amazon.com for $2.99 until Book 4 is released.

Secondly, here's the prologue to Book 4, Painted Face Woman.

Prologue: The Chieftain's Daughter

In Obasan Village, the local pleasure palace was considered a very exclusive school for the daughters of wealthy men. There, day after day, they learned about beauty, music, and dance. Those who excelled in memorization and performance were taught the ancient art of storytelling and held an exulted rank.

The girls from were from common families; their fathers were typically merchants who specialized in silk, gold, precious stones, and wine. If an incense, linen, candle or perfume merchant was particularly successful, their daughter might attend. These girls were usually from the city; in the village, it was traditional for people to make these products themselves, and thus such merchants could only prosper in the city. Being from the city was what gave these girls status; they were usually the most fashionable and had all the best gossip about the noble and royal families.

So one can imagine their surprise when they heard a chieftain’s daughter had not only enrolled, but paid the first year’s fees in full.

Rumors about her sprung quickly and spread like wildfire. Little was known about the girl herself, except that she was quite traveled, a gifted dancer, and had spent some time in Prince Iyuru’s palace at Wala.

Even the staff at the palace was excited about her arrival. The maids cleaned harder and more often than usual, and the House Mistress prepared to reach out to her wealthier patrons about her latest acquisition. The girls sometimes overheard her rehearsing to the chaperons, honing and tweaking her sales pitch.

The new girl finally arrived shortly after dawn one morning; apparently she’d spend her first night in town at a local inn. The girls found this odd; protocol dictated a new girl leave her home and go straight to her assigned palace. Pleasure palaces were intended to cater to pleasures of the mind—music, plays, dance, and fine rare wine. Patrons and students were never left alone, and House Mistresses ensured there were trained chaperones and guards in every room. Thus, any deviation from protocol tended to raise eyebrows; ergo, no proper girl spent a night alone at an inn. Such behavior could taint a palace’s reputation, and call its purity into question.

But the new girl’s arrival squashed suspicions as quickly as she raised them. For one, she entered the gates in a goat-drawn carriage which, in Oon Sati, was practically a thing of myth. The carriage was a dainty little creation of bamboo and light wood from the North, draped in bleached linen. The goats themselves were white as the linen, having been soaped and scrubbed quite diligently.

The new girl was accompanied by a regal valet who was seemingly twice her height. The girls recognized him as Sir Umasan, who was in the employ of the village chief. His presence drew grasps of awe.

He entered the main hall where the students and even some of the maids excitedly gathered. He made eye contact with no one, which was both haughty and understandable. Sir Umasan did, after all, tower above every single person in the room.

The new girl stepped forward, fanning herself with a white feather fan dusted in gold. Her dress was just as extravagant.

Like her valet, she made eye contact with no one, though she had no excuse. Unlike her valet, she was quite possibly the shortest person in the entire palace. Instead she cast her bored eyes downward, daintily fanning herself as she yawned, “Have all the arrangements been prepared?”

“Yes, my lady,” Sir Umasan replied, showing his first shred of humility. He turned back to the slowly growing awestruck crowd and proclaimed in a booming voice:

“I am Sir Umasan, and it is my serene honor to present to all assembled the Lady Inya, daughter of Kobunye, Lord of Umi Town.”
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Aaaaaaaaand here's a sneak peak of a work in progress, the cover of Book 5, Twisted Sister.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

There were some errors that have REALLY been bugging me on this one, so I went ahead and republished a corrected version. If readers allow for a few hours (or a day) of updating, then they will see they are able to purchase this first volume for $2.99 as well until June 21st, 2014.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Painted Face Woman is going to be Book 4 in the series. The cover (done flawlessly by Jules Nguyễn) was inspired, in part, by Inya, and unlike Books 1 & 2, it picks up immediately where Book 3 leaves off, finishing off a previous storyline. The bounty hunter Vathi will be rejoining our main girls for an adventure, as usual, we'll get to know a few more things about Selo and Inya themselves.

Because Book 5 hasn't even been started, now is a great time to ask questions and make suggestions about things you'd like to know about our characters or "see" in this series. You never know what just might spark my imagination.